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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm an admin and couldn't be happier with our new superintendent. He was very clear that offices aren't speaking to one another and there needs to be an overhaul. He's walking the talk by having all of these people reapply for their positions. We're drowning in school buildings while some central office people still Zoom into meetings from home.[/quote]

This is what I'm hearing from other administrators as well. They are happy with Taylor, and very happy with the reorg.

At a certain point, there are elements on this board and in the broader community who are just never going to be happy. They will snipe and they will harass and they will mock, and some of it is just trolling and some of it is bad feelings from a job they lost a decade ago, but the rest of us need to ignore the noise and listen to folks like PP who have actual skin at the game at this point.[/quote]

The insiders who know all the names of the people at the CO and follow know all the semi-true drama aren't all that credible. They're always looking to find fault and discover conspiracies that don't exist.[/quote]

Then let’s just focus on the disasters that do exist.  No need to secrets.  The MCPS health insurance system is crashing.  That’s a fact, not a secret.  MCPS is in financial trouble on multiple fronts.  What is Superintendent Taylor doing about these known disasters?[/quote]

The health insurance system isn’t crashing, BUT its financial stability does need to be constrained.  And MCPS needs to have some very real and frank conversations with current staff, retirees, the county and state about this.  They also need to get real clear with their insurance company about what they can eliminate to help while still making the insurance comparable to other jobs.  Because this is having a big impact on the larger available budget.[/quote]

I think you're exaggerating the problem. Healthcare is a mess overall in this country, but MCPS mostly just needs to donate couple things. They need to slightly reduce the employer share of premiums to be closer to other government jobs. And they need to get rid of whatever corrupt entity low-balled the medical costs in order to keep employee-premiums artificially low. Related to that, rhey need to change their practices so there's a carryover fund to make up for differences between the expected and actual health cRe costs, and adjust premiums to refill that fund when there's a shortfall in previous years.[/quote]

You think the entity low-balled the medical costs on their own? They were likely instructed to do so by their MCPS counterparts. The entity in question is AON, btw. And they were likely instructed to lowball by Brian Hull, who feigned surprised and shock when the bill came due.[/quote]

Or just stop what the crackpot ideas.  AON recommend 9-13% which MCPS accounted for and the actual came in much higher.  Further, they didn’t have a large reserve to draw from because the county council made them include it as part of the budget for last year instead of it being a reserve.  Even further, as was already mentioned, healthcare as been part of staff retention so moving the premiums 15% to where they probably need to be creates additional challenges.

What you’re witnessing is school systems near breaking point from the weight of a whole bunch of constraints that leave them very little room to maneuver. [/quote]

Cute story, but it was very clear that AON and MCPS Ops/Finance misforecast in a way that was and should have been anticipated. Hull admitted as much and they told the council that they were having conversations with Aon about better management/forecasting.

Your desperation to blame everyone and everything but the system is pathetic.[/quote]

First I didn’t blame anyone.  Second you are misconstruing what Hill admitted.  He admitted that the AON forecast was a miss because clearly cost were coming in higher than expected.  What else would you call it at the point other than a miss?  And because the difference was so high and causing so many problems and this was the 2nd time that AON’s forecast was a miss, that is why they were having serious conversations with them.  It’s not so much that MCPS FinanceOps should have anticipated it.  There only way they have to anticipate it is to create a reserve in case of a loss likely by including an upwards swag to the recommended guidance.  But that would also have to be explained and agreed upon.  You can’t just say oh AON recommended 9-13% but we want to swag it 20% just in case and pass the 13% into premiums and the other 7% into reserve from MCPS. Anyone with a brain would ask why and for overwhelming evidence that course of action was needed.[/quote]

When you hire a service provider like AON, it's MCPS's job to scrutinize and oversee AON's work. It was very clear in that meeting that the Council felt that MCPS had given AON too much latitude and trust and could have and should have foreseen the issues AON was causing if MCPS's Operations/Finance team were doing their jobs better. I'm not sure how or why you're missing that piece. [/quote]

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